


breath and blood relatives

by theycallme_ook



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Attempted Poetry, Gen, Hetabang 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24989473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theycallme_ook/pseuds/theycallme_ook
Summary: It was 1801 and here he was. Sitting on a bed, looking out a window. He could feel the swell of joy in his heart as his people welcomed the new year like he could hear the swell of music downstairs. It was well then. All would be well. His people would know how to smile even without him there to protect them. All would be well.
Relationships: Holy Roman Empire & Prussia (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	breath and blood relatives

breath and blood relatives

  
  


He was torn.

He was torn and being torn. The ripping was painful, terrible- exhausting in a way he thought he'd be more ready for than this. The cracks had always been there. He'd never truly been whole, truly felt function and unity and blissful togetherness as did his siblings.

Oh he had tried, and tried, and tried again to find a way to connect all the lingering and scattered pieces of himself. If it could ever have been called that. But now, he knew it would succeed.

This would succeed where all other religious uprisings and contentious crusades and power struggles before had failed. As each month went on, as more people fled and suffered and died- he grew stronger in his conviction, all the while growing weaker in body.

That this, this sprawling mess of battles and treachery, would kill him.

\--

His neighbors smelt blood. And now they circled, like sharks. Watching and waiting for the day they could have some of what was his for themselves.

At this point, much of it wasn't even him. He could feel the people's conviction slipping away. Piece by piece.

If Nations were built on belief, then his foundations were crumbling fast.

\--

His brother. Sweet, stubborn, stupid brother, held onto him still.

_ "I'm dying soon." _ He'd told him

_ "You've been saying that for centuries." _ His brother had scoffed.

_ "It's been true for centuries." _ He'd said.

_ "Then what makes this time different?" _ Asked his brother. Younger brother. One who had once been so small. Small and stubborn and stupid. A nation who he had watched grow and grow and grow, till Heinrich was looking  _ up _ to meet his eyes, instead of down  as it should have been .

_ Like a weed. _ He supposed. A weed that had far eclipsed the tree it once depended on for support. And now, would be one of the very things that choked that tree out of existence.

_ "This time," _ he replied. Closing himself off from those eyes.  _ "You know it was well." _

He felt the weight of his brother's stare on his person, and could almost see the mix of  _ hurt-rage-grief _ that would be painted on his face. His sentimental, stubborn, stupid brother had never been good at hiding his emotions, after all.

Then the weight left, and he was alone on his sickbed once more.

_ This is fine _ , came a voice in the back of his mind. He twisted another bunch of linen in his hand.  _ The tree was sickly to begin with _ .

\--

Little Venitia had less to say. Instead, he had brought presents. A book full of sketches of those cityscapes and countrysides (both Italian and German) that he missed so dearly. Some Venetian fritole in a tin. Some sprigs of the pine and oak trees that sat right outside his window, but which he no longer had the health to visit.

Upon walking in, Venice had taken one look at his chambers and then shot a glare at his friend.

"How do you expect to get better in a place like this?" He'd demanded in that cute little accent of his, gesturing to the dust and drawn curtains.

" _ Sea air _ won't make me better now, Vení." He'd rasped.

Venice's eyes narrowed again, but this time there was remorse mixed in with the anger in them.

"Well, it certainly won't hurt either." He'd declared, before setting about yanking back drapes, opening windows and sweeping with a passion till the room looked just like what a doctor would recommend a recovering patient, instead of the dank chamber he had been keeping himself in.

Servants had tried, of course, and others had offered- they would be relieved to see that someone had finally succeeded on the front where all others had failed. And though he grumbled and groused to Venice about the too-bright sunlight and obnoxious bird song, privately he was glad that he could not bully at least one person into treating him like he was already dead.

\--

That Napoleon Bonaparte was calling himself the new Charlemagne. 

He had to laugh.

The laugh swiftly turned into painful coughing, but it still felt good. 

_ Charlemagne indeed _ . He thought, sipping at some now tepid tea with morbid cheer. Well, if that was the case, France's little empire wouldn't last long at all.

Perhaps he would write France a quick missive reminding him to have his new boss touch up on some history. Didn't he know what happened to foolish boys looking to play emperor?

\--

This new Charlemagne was proving to be more trouble than he was worth. 

Like the last, this one wanted to unite all of Europe.

And like the last, he wouldn't live to see it.

It was 1803, and there were whispers of the French wanting to take the crown of the Holy Roman Empire for themselves.

He was determined to prove those ambitions void. 

Not through force, no. He no longer had the strength for that.

But there was still one thing he could do.

\--

On August 6th, 1806, emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire abdicated the imperial title and released all affiliated states from their oaths of obligation.

The first great union of Germanic states- founded in 800 A.D., which lasted for one thousand and six years, was dead.

By all accounts, the little boy lying in front of him should be too.

That was the way with his kind, he had heard.

He supposed it was because a few states chose to refute the emperors' legal right to dissolve the empire -sustaining some last vestiges of belief- that the palid little boy stayed. Wasting away.

Asleep.

Unwaking.

But not dead yet.

\--

France was not worried about those little Germanic states. If they wanted to hold to the supposed glory of their once union, then so be it. It was nothing more than an annoyance in the end. Their desperate clinging to outdated ideas would give way to the new enlightenment under his leadership.

Besides, as his own Voltaire had said, that supposed empire had never really been much of one in the first place. France could vouch for that. He'd watched Heinrich for a thousand years now, and the boy had never grown over what- three feet?

France scoffed. 

He was not worried about those little Germanic states. No.

He was strong, he was tall, he had the might of  _ Rome _ and the will of the Frankish peoples on his side. He was everything a nation wanted to be.

Everything the  _ Holy Roman Empire _ ( what a mockery) never was.

He would not fail.

\--

Red flowers. (At the funeral)

\--

An empty seat. (Of a ruler)

\--

A breaking wave. (On a ship's hull)

\--

Another hole. (What are they grieving?)

\--

A rising tide. (A movement)

\--

An anger. (At The Other)

\--

An anger. (At the Top)

\--

An anger. (At themselves)

\--

A decision. (Of identity)

\--

A breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes on the poem: there’s ten lines, so ill be numbering their explanations off in that fashion. 1) hre’s funeral, 2) empty hre throne, 3) Russian/British defiance of the Continental System, 4) uhh i forgot whoops, 5) rising nationalism, 6) anger at foreign resistance to a German Union, 7) anger at German rulers for denying unification, 8) as it says, 9) the decision to identify as a nation-state, 10) that’s up for interpretation.
> 
> also, hre x ita if you squint. I defiantly wrote Heinrich as having s o m e affections for Feli, if you wanted to know.


End file.
